False Allegations (12 page)

Wolfe wouldn’t do that, so they threw her whole life in the garbage for payback.

The rest of the staff got the message. None of the others in her old unit stood up except her pal Lily, the social worker, who only worked there as a consultant anyway. Wolfe formed a new crew. Started working campus investigations: date rape, sexual harassment, stalking. The schools hire her on a per–job basis— she’ll never have another boss besides herself.

But there was something else. Something I’d picked up from the whisper–stream that flows just under the city’s streets. The word said she’d gone outlaw after being fired, running her own intelligence cell, picking stuff up from the deep network she’d established when she was head of City–Wide…and selling it.

You can’t trust everything you hear from the underground— the whisper–stream vacuums up everything, gold to garbage.

But I knew who to ask.

“I
can place the face,” the Prof said to me out of the side of his mouth, “but the crew is new.”

We were on a bench in the park next to Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. A beautiful fall day, late September but still warm enough for the “Look at me!” crowd to display a lot of skin. The Prof was looking across to a parking lot where a tall woman with long dark hair was getting out of a battered old Audi sedan. She was wearing a white jumpsuit, a white beret set on her head at a jaunty angle. It was a good fifty yards away, but I could make out the distinctive white wings in her hair. I recognized the barrel–bodied Rottweiler she held on a short leash too. Wolfe. And the infamous Bruiser.

“You got them all?” I asked.

“One on the left,” the Prof said. “With all the kids.”

I took a glance. A small girl with long straight dark hair, surrounded by a pack of children. She was wearing a baggy pair of red–and–white–striped clown pants and a white T–shirt with some writing on the front. Big words, red letters. A beret on her head too; red. She had the kids bouncing around in some kind of snake dance, all of them laughing and waving their arms, following her lead. Black kids, white kids, Latino kids, Oriental kids…dozens of them, it looked like. The girl took a quick run–up and launched into a cartwheel, bounced up and clapped her hands. The kids all tried it at once, a riot of color tumbling over the grass. Adults stood back and watched, respectful of the magic.

“Catch the backup?” the Prof asked, tilting his chin at a big rangy–looking man in jeans and a cut–off black sweatshirt, his long light–brown hair tied in a ponytail. He had an athlete’s build, stood with his hands open at his sides. Moving to the back of the watchers, rolling his shoulders, his hands empty, the man never took his eyes off the girl in the clown pants.

“Karate man?” I asked.

“Or boxer,” the Prof replied. “Something like that. He ain’t strapped, but he’s got the broad wrapped, no question.”

A young woman came down the path, a mass of dark–blonde hair spilling out from under a purple beret. Lemon–yellow bicycle shorts were topped by a white T–shirt with red lettering, same as the girl in the clown pants. She had a cell phone in a sling over one shoulder, a vanilla ice cream cone in the other hand. At her side was a light–tan dog with a white blaze on its chest— looked like a pit bull with uncropped ears. The dog moved with a delicate, mincing gait, its big head swiveling to watch anyone who got close.

The blonde stopped, dropped to one knee, held the ice cream cone inches from the dog’s snout. The beast didn’t move a muscle, feral eyes somewhere in the middle distance so it wouldn’t be tempted to break the command. Then the blonde said something and the dog snapped the entire head off the ice cream cone in one happy snatch. The blonde stood up and kept walking, nonchalantly munching on what was left of the cone.

The girl got near enough for me to read the lettering on her shirt: the same DON’T! BUY! THAI! I’d seen on the woman at Boot’s joint. I knew what that was about— I’d seen the same shirt a dozen times since. There’s been a boycott going against anything made in Thailand for a while now. They sell babies for sex in Thailand. “Kiddie sex tourism,” they call it. A whole lot of folks figured it out a long time ago: they sell babies for money, you choke off their money, maybe they’ll stop it. Me, I’d rather choke off their air supply, but their neck’s too thick.

The young woman stopped a few feet away from us, the dog halting next to her, regarding us with that flat disinterested stare that all the really dangerous ones have. The dog’s short, muscular body was wrapped in one of those layered workout shirts, pink on top with just a hint of white around the neckline. When she sat up, I could read what was printed on the chest of the jersey. “IF YOU CAN READ THIS, CALL 911.”

“What kind of dog is that?” I asked her.

“She’s an AmStaff,” the woman said. “An American Staffordshire Terrier.”

“Looks like a pit bull to me,” I told her.

“They were originally the same,” she said, like she had all day to explain. “Petey, you remember, from the Little Rascals? He was the first AmStaff. They’re like the show version of the pits. Sweeter too, right, Honey?” she cooed.

The dog responded to her name with a soft snarl. The woman stepped closer. Her face was lovely: huge eyes, peaches–and–cream skin. But her mouth was straight and serious— I didn’t need the beret to tell me she was with Wolfe.

“You have something for me, Mr. Burke?” she asked.

“Just a message,” I said, not reacting to her knowing my name. “For Wolfe. You can do that, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m interested in somebody. Man named Kite. Think she could help me?”

“That depends.”

“On…?”

“We’re in business, Mr. Burke. Just like you.”

“I’ll pay what it costs,” I said. “When can you do it?”

“Maybe now,” she answered. “I have to make a call. Just stay here, all right? Pepper will come over and tell you.”

“Pepper?”

“You already spotted her,” the young woman said, glancing over to where the girl in the clown pants was showing the kids how to twirl long thick ribbons on sticks.

I opened my mouth to say something, but the young woman walked off. The dog she said wasn’t a pit bull looked over her shoulder at me without breaking stride, a clear warning.

I
t was another fifteen, twenty minutes before the girl in the clown pants broke away from the mob of kids, waving goodbye. Half of them tried to follow her— it took her a few minutes to get clear. The guy in the black sweatshirt stayed right behind her, about twenty feet back. I watched Max pick him up on an angle, moving fast but so smooth you couldn’t tell unless you referenced him against the stationary trees.

She rolled up on us with a springy dancer’s walk, flashing a smile bright enough to light up a suicide ward. “Hi!” she called out.

“You’re Pepper?” I asked by way of greeting.

“That’s me, chief!” she said, throwing a mock salute. “At your service.”

The guy in the black sweatshirt settled in behind her, hands still at his sides. Max settled in too, maybe four paces to his right— he must have made the guy for a southpaw.

“Tell your friend to relax,” I said to Pepper. “We’re friends too.”

“My friend? Oh, you mean Mick? He’s fine where he is, okay?”

“Sure. You’re gonna fix it? For me to talk to Wolfe?”

She stepped closer. Her eyes were as dark as her hair, deep and lustrous, shining with some inner happiness I’d never know. “You know the big statue? In the plaza?”

“Yes.”

“Go on over. Walk slow. By the time you get there, you can talk to her.”

“Thanks.”

“You get what you pay for,” she said, flashing another smile.

C
larence caught up with me and the Prof before we got halfway to the statue. He was wearing a mango jacket over a black silk shirt buttoned to the neck. His pants were black too, ballooning at the knees and tapering down to a narrow peg at the cuff. The saddle–stitching matched his jacket, right out of the Fifties. His shoes were midnight mirrors.

“Max went with the big guy, followed him right out. He hooked up with the Pied Piper girl. He’s got a beautiful old bike, mahn. A Norton Black Shadow. British, you know. The girl just jumped on the back and they took off.”

“What about the other one? The blonde with the pit bull?”

“Ah,
that
one. She is a piece of work, mahn. I was walking behind her. Just slow, ambling like. You know the pull–over spot? Where the cops park to watch everything?”

“Yeah. By the library, right?”

“Yes, mahn. There are two cops sitting there in a prowl car. You know, kicked back— not cooping or anything, just chilling. So this blonde girl, she walks up on them. And the pit bull, mahn, it stands up on its hind legs and sticks its snout right inside the car. And when it comes out, it has a donut in its mouth! I could not believe it, mahn— that damn dog must think the police car is a vending machine. I never saw such boldness.”

“Ah, the cops were probably just trying to make points with the blonde.”

“No mahn. It was not like that, I tell you. It was the dog. I believe it does that all the time, like a regular thing. Amazing.”

We found a piece of railing just across from the statue. Wolfe was nowhere in sight. The Prof hoisted himself up onto the railing, dangling his short legs free, basking in the sun.

Girls walked by. On parade. Every size and shape and color on the earth, it seemed like. The railing was lined with young men, some not so young. All fishing off the same pier, but using different bait. Some smiled shyly, some fiddled with cellular phones self–importantly, like they were making some big deal. One guy did an ostentatious series of stretches, like he was getting ready to run a marathon. Some crooned “baby!” some snarled “bitch!” Some of the girls smiled, some of them looked away. None of them stopped.

Clarence just watched. A woman with high cheekbones and glowing dark–chocolate skin approached. She had on a white halter top and white shorts, cornrowed raven hair swinging with her step. She passed right in front of us, close. Her butt looked like a bursting peach. “Oh, God has
blessed
you, girl!” Clarence called out, sincerity lacing his voice like honey in tea.

“Might be He could bless you too, you act as sweet as you talk,” the girl called back over her shoulder, not breaking stride.

Clarence catapulted off the railing, falling into step next to the woman like he was going to walk her to church. We watched them until they were out of sight. The Prof extended an open palm for me to slap. “That boy can
go
. And I taught him everything he know.”

“He learned from the master,” I acknowledged.

“Too true,” the little man replied. “Only thing, I can’t figure out why he likes them so skinny.”

I didn’t say anything. The girl had been maybe five, six, and she’d trip the scales right around welterweight. If every man in America had the Prof’s taste, anorexia would vanish overnight.

A few minutes went by peacefully. Then the Prof said, “The Queen’s on the scene, Schoolboy. Get it done, son.”

I started across to the statue. Where Wolfe waited.

T
he years hadn’t changed her. Pale gunfighter’s eyes set wide apart in a cameo of fair, unblemished skin, all surrounded by a mass of heavy brunette curls. Standing tall on black spike heels, her carriage proud and straight. “It’s been a long time,” she said softly, “but I keep hearing about you.”

“I hear about you too,” I told her.

“And that’s why you’re here,” she said, getting right to it, like always.

I just looked at her. Years ago, she’d told me the truth: “You and me, it’s not gonna be,” she’d said then. Reading the menu, changing restaurants before she got a taste. I didn’t blame her— Wolfe crossed the border once in a while, but she didn’t want to live there. “You know about a guy name Kite?” I asked her finally.

“You want pedigree?”

“I want whatever you got.”

“Past, present, or future?”

“You do that? Surveillance?”

“Not twenty–four–seven. But we can pull agency stuff every day. And he’s on the Net too.”

“What’s the toll?”

“You can have a voice bio for a deuce, paper package for five. A cross–check, right up to today, that’s another five, unless he’s webbed and you want the whole thing run.”

“And the updates?”

“A grand for every hit, voice–notify. Half that just to keep the watch on.”

“You must be rich, girl, you getting prices like that.”

“I’ve got heavy expenses,” she said, flashing her gorgeous smile. But her eyes stayed hard.

“You trust me for the voice bio?”

“Sure,” she said. “But I know you wouldn’t hit the street without at least that much cash. The kind of bail they’d put on you, you have to be carrying a much bigger piece just for case money.”

“You want it here?” I asked, not denying her diagnosis.

“Tell one of your people to throw it in the car,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the Audi.